Getting lots done...

I'm still on a roll and it feels good! I just finished the sock that I started a couple of months ago. For some reason this sock has taken much more time than usual and I still have the second sock to go but it's a beautiful sock and made with yarn I died myself. There are so many things I want to knit but I'm not letting myself have several projects going, it's one project at a time for this kid.

on the bead front, I've been getting lots of beads made. I'm getting on the torch at least twice a week if not more and I'm getting jewelry made. Right now I'm in the process of designing my own toggles. I can never find toggles that I like except for one company but their toggles are so expensive! The issue I've been having is what medium to make the prototypes out of so then I can take it to the casters to make into sterling silver. My first idea was to make it out of sterling silver square wire, well that was a bust, I'm not very good at soldering yet and I need to saw my wire perfect so the joints meet with no space so it will take the solder, well, I'm not very good at that either. So then there was the thought of using PMC (precious medal clay), I decided against that for now, the stuff is really expensive and I'm not sure if I can make it without texture (I want a smooth deigning). Then I though Fimo! So I bought some Fimo and actually made one of the toggles designs but when I went to move it to take it to the oven to bake the whole thing distorted, I forgot that the stuff doesn't stiffen if left out so I scratched that idea. So now I'm trying jewelers wax and going to try and carve out my design. It's going to be an interesting process, I started it just a bit ago and was using those plastic templates that architects use that have different size circle, squares, triangle etc. Once again I realized that using these template wasn't accurate enough so I'm going to create my design in Photoshop (my favorite program in the world besides Dreamweaver). And if all this fails I'm just going to find someone who can take my deign idea and create it for me. But in the meantime I'm learning a lot.

I also bought a couple of new tools one of which I already got and the other I'm weightings for and I'm so excited about them!!! The one I already received and LOVE is the Smith Little Torch. I'd been using a cream brule torch for quite a while for doing fusing and solder but it really sucked, it was slow and I would end up with my scrap silver because the end result was poop. So I took the dive and bought the torch and what a pleasure to use. I was trying to repair a pair of earrings for a friend with no luck at all, as a matter of fact I nearly ruined the earring (hope Terri isn't readying this). But with the little torch I was able to fix it instantly! The second thing I bought which I'm weightings for is for beading and it's called "The Creation Station" it's a set up for my torch that helps with ergonomic. I've been getting a lot of wrist and arm pain after spending some time at the torch. A friend of mine has one so I sat at her torch the other day and it really felt good, there is wrist support and elbow support. The really cool thing besides the fact that it will help my arms and wrists is that when I called around I found a guy who is a rep for the company that makes them and he had a slightly used one that he sold me for a quarter of the price. yippy, I love to save money.

Well, this has been an extremely long post so I better end here and get to the torch.